Meditations for Happiness

I recently received the WiseBrain email newsletter from Rick Hanson, PhD. He has put together an offering through Sounds True called

Meditations for Happiness: Guided Meditations to Cultivate Lasting Contentment and Peace.

He says about the audio project...

"It's a downloadable audio program with over three hours of fascinating and practical information about how your brain makes you happy or unhappy, and how to use that understanding to promote the happiness of yourself and others. (There are) 14 guided meditations that directly train your brain into happier states of mind! It's solid, straightforward, accessible to anyone - and really inexpensive. It's an excellent introduction to the emerging science of happiness for someone new to the field, while also being deeply grounded in the profound wisdom of the contemplative traditions. Both for yourself, and for anyone whose happiness you want to support, I can honestly say that this program is full of interesting, fun, and tremendously useful material. It makes you happy just listening to it! "

I haven't heard these guided meditations yet But Dr. Hanson and his partner at Wise Brain, Dr. Rick Mendius, M.D. are doing some really interesting work exploring the "fertile common ground of psychology, neurology, and contemplative practice". So check it out.

Yoga on Public Radio

Public radio program "Speaking of Faith" has an interview with Yoga teacher Sean Corne called Yoga: Meditation in Action.

Host Krista Tippet has started her own yoga journey at the urging of a staff member.

Here's what Krista had to say about yoga...

"I believe that the spiritual aspect and essence of yoga — the relationship of the spiritual to the physical experience, the vocabulary by which we understand and process that relationship — will vary substantially from person to person. Like meditation, this ancient spiritual technology lends itself to interpretation and incorporation with many spiritual sensibilities and religious traditions — just as its range of practices are adaptable to any type of body at any stage of vitality or disability. I also see this yoga phenomenon as part of a larger move that we've variously explored towards rooting — or rather, reintegrating — the body into spiritual and religious traditions, from Judaism to Pentecostal Christianity. There is some wonderful, fundamental insight here that many of us are reclaiming from wildly different directions. And as Matthew Sanford still so memorably put it to me, the more completely we inhabit our own bodies with both their strengths and their flaws, the more compassionate we become towards all of life. That's the kind of earthy, reality-based mystery I love."

Namaste Yogis!

I've just returned from a weekend workshop with one of my favorite yogis, Erich Schiffmann. I think this is his 7th workshop in Yellow Springs, Ohio. I've been to all of them except one. For several reasons, it felt like the best one ever. I think it was Sunday morning when, after speaking for awhile, he said that he hoped this stuff was interesting and that we'd do some yoga in a minute or two. Someone in the room said told him that we could open a book and do a yoga practice anytime, but that we were here to hear him speak. The whole room burst into applause. So thanks to that yogini who said outloud what, dare I say, most of us were thinking.

Here's a photo of the room mostly without yogis...

Here's a photo of the room WITH yogis...doing some freeform yoga on Sunday just before the end of the workshop. Imagine some cool music happening and everyone just doing what they are drawn to do.

And here's a place where love is coming through!

Meditation on and off the cushion...

I was doing my seated meditation practice yesterday morning and heard a sound like a hammer on wood. Normally, I'd just notice and continue to sit. But there was something about this sound that drew me off the cushion. As soon as I left the room I could tell the sound was outside and not in the house. I moved toward the window in the bedroom that looks into the woods behind our house. And I saw FOUR Pileated Woodpeckers. (Think... Woody, the Woodpecker!) I hear them from time to time but rarely see them, let alone 4 of them. I watched the two males nearest to the house work hard on the two tree limbs they were perched on. They were there for a long time. It was so exciting to watch them since usually any sightings are fleeting. This opportunity became a part of my meditation practice as I felt joy and wonder as physical sensation. Noticed joy as breath. Noticed the difference in the energy of my seated posture as I later returned to my meditation cushion. What a great morning!

This moment is like this

Dancing with Life
by Phillip Moffitt

I've got such a HUGE pile of books next to my bed just now. This one I may take awhile to read because I came across this phrase that just resonated with me so much, I've stopped to play with it awhile. The author quotes buddhist monk Ajahn Sumedho as saying (frequently) "This moment is like this". It really helps me to "understand the difference between skillfully observing a difficult experience from within and unskillfully getting lost in the content of that experience". It actually works really well for any kind of experience. We're not always that great at really diving into the joyful experiences either. We can get caught up in wanting them to last instead of experiencing them "like this".

Freestylin' it...

Check out "Your Very Own Yoga", an article by yoga teacher Anne Jablonski in the August 2008 Fit Yoga Magazine. She eloquently describes the ways in which my teacher, Erich Schiffmann encourages exploration of yoga from within in order to establish a yoga and meditation practice that is truly yours. For those of you who haven't met Erich (yet), perhaps you'll understand why I have so much love and respect for him.

Space

There are so many ways to meditate. Sitting, walking, breathing, chanting, contemplating, noting, abiding. Lately it feels to me like simply making space. I have a meditation timer on my iPod that goes for 30 minutes. There are three tones from a Tibetan bell to start and two to end. In between is just space. No guidance, no reminders that you're half way through (which some timers have and, personally, I just don't want to know).

The mind isn't just space for all that time. It's helpfully trying to fill the time with planning, with creative projects, with lists, with complaining, with memories. I don't mind. I play with how quickly I notice. Sometimes I'll be well down an inner conversational path before I come back to just space. Sometimes I don't even get a whole word out before...ahhh space.

This space allows me to make space in my whole life. Its not just about clearing out the clutter for 30 minutes (or 5 minutes or 15 or whatever) but about remembering to make the space to love my husband, to recognize that there's a person checking my groceries not just some faceless piece of a process, to be creative with the things I have and not always feel the need to buy something new. Where could you use some space?

I was just talking about this idea of meditation as spaciousness this morning and came across this article about making space this afternoon. I notice these things. When something seems to pop up for me from several sources (inner and outer)...I think, hmmm, this must be important.